The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst.

“Tis scarcely true that souls come naked down
To take abode up in this earthly town,
Or naked pass, of all they wear denied.
We enter slipshod and with clothes awry,
And we take with us much that by-and-by
May prove no easy task to put aside.
Cleanse, therefore, that which round about us clings,
We pray Thee, Master, ere Thy sacred halls
We enter. Strip us of redundant things,
And meetly clothe us in pontificals.
[Strange Houses of Sleep by A. E. Waite.]” [via]

Consider also:

  1. “The perfect cube must pass through the metamorphosis of the Cross.”
  2. “There are members of the Craft to whom it is familiar, and who in due time may feel justified in gradually making public at any rate some portion of what is known in interior circles. But ere that time comes, and that the Craft itself may the better appreciate what can be told, it is desirable, nay even necessary, that its own members should make some effort to realize the meaning of their own institution and should display symptoms of earnest desire to treat it less as a system of archaic and perfunctory rites, and more as a vital reality capable of entering into and dominating their lives; less as a merely pleasant social order, and more as a sacred and serious method of initiation into the profoundest truths of life.”
  3. “So also our Patron Saint (St. John) teaches, ‘He who hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He (i.e., the Master whom he is seeking) is pure.'”
  4. “For to all of us such initial cleansing and purifying is necessary.”
  5. “What is meant is that complete self-sacrifice and self-crucifixion which, as all religions teach, are essential before the soul can be raised in glory ‘from a figurative death to a reunion with the companions of its former toils’ both here and in the unseen world.”